


Will You Stay

by Pauperfish



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Breaking Up & Making Up, Friends With Benefits, Infidelity, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:47:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27071470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pauperfish/pseuds/Pauperfish
Summary: “Don’t go.” The hand around his arm was the last thing Yuta expected to feel tonight. He was beginning to see the error in his judgement after convincing himself that this might be the closure he badly needed.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Nakamoto Yuta, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	Will You Stay

Yuta watched the man with broad shoulders and deep, dark brown eyes, perhaps a bit transfixed. It wasn’t like he could help it. He knew those hands and those lips too intimately.

The crowd devoured the man’s presence within seconds, taller men, elegant, arresting women pushed up on their toes by pointy stilettos surrounding him from every direction. Yuta knew what to expect when he accepted the invitation: Jung Jaehyun was a man of influence, his name rooted deep in the workings of the corporate world even with his scarce participation in his family’s businesses.

Yuta’s facade crumbled when Jaehyun met his eyes like he’d been looking everywhere for him. Yuta doubted that was the case and turned away.

&&

  
  


They met in Jaehyun’s second year in college. The world was small even outside the campus: the dairy queen at elm street, the diner that served that best pancake in town, the 24/7 store at the gas station and finally, the old cinema due to be torn down for a new apartment complex. Jaehyun and Yuta were just the two Asian kids who smoked too much and partied too hard on weekdays, and still aced their tests the next day. Their world was small but their presence was remarkable.

Especially Jaehyun.

He was the youngest son of a Korean conglomerate. He wasn’t expected to take over the businesses, that role was reserved for his older brother, and drove a second hand toyota corolla around town without shame. He was a contradiction as much as he was predictable, while Yuta was just another exchange student from Japan hoping to make the cut for next semester’s scholarship.

And just like that, he found himself in Jaehyun’s orbit, like a moth drawn to flame.

It was only supposed to be that. A friendship borne out of their similarities and differences, one that endured stress-filled finals weeks and opposing baseball teams. 

Until Jaehyun pushed him against a damp wall behind dairy queen and plunged his tongue between Yuta’s chapped lips. Until Yuta held him close and slid a knee between his legs instead of pushing him away. 

“It’s fine. Think of it as a game.” Yuta whispered between their lips. His words were the safety net underneath their feet 

  
  


&&

  
  


“I knew I’d find you here.” 

Yuta could smell his distinctive cologne even through the sharp tang of lemon and tequila in the air. It was hot inside the club but Yuta could feel his fingers growing cold from the glass in his hand.

“Same, though I was hoping you’d be less forward with this many people.” 

Jaehyun only smiled at the snide remark. With him very close, it was hard not to notice the bags under his eyes and the pale strip of skin around his ring finger. Yuta swallowed the bitterness on his tongue.

“You look exactly as you did the last time.” 

Yuta frowned, because the last time was a little more than two years ago. Not nearly significant enough to warrant the observation. The reminder didn’t make him feel better. Two years ago, he’d stood beside Jaehyun at the altar while he waited for the bride his parents carefully selected for him like he didn’t have his hand down Yuta’s pants minutes before the ceremony.

“And you look like you aged a hundred years since I last saw you.” It wasn’t completely true. Jaehyun was as breathtaking as he’d been the first time he pinned Yuta to a back alley wall.

“Married life does that to you.” 

Try a life pinning after the man who set you aside after making you believe that there was only you, he wanted to say but he cleared his throat instead. He swirled his glass of mojito on the bar and not so subtly glanced at his watch. Escape was behind the throng of guests now flocked around a newly arrived guy, a CEO of some sort. Yuta had seen him in some magazine a while back.

“I think it’s time for me to go. It’s a weekday and I can’t afford to stay out too late.”

  
  


&&

  
  


One kiss turned into two and then to many more in the comfort of Jaehyun’s solo apartment near the campus. It had become routine to be parked in Jaehyun’s bed long before he finished his last class for the day, sometimes with a cup of the cheap 3 in 1 Jaehyun stocked up on regularly for Yuta.

It was inevitable, his sister said. He would fall, and very hard, especially when he just kept letting Jaehyun in. Always. Always. 

And then his last spring in America came to an end and he was on the plane back to Japan with only an email address and a selfie of them sharing a bucket of popcorn at the old cinema on its last operational day. 

Jaehyun didn’t contact him immediately and Yuta was only just a few heartbeats away from acceptance and moving on. It was the natural progression of things, even if he was still a little hung up over the handsome boy who kissed with his heart and fucked with his tears beading in the corners of his eyes.

Except their story wasn’t done yet as Jaehyun had decided, calling from across the sea with the promise of a well paying job in one of his family’s corporate offices. But what really got Yuta was the yearning in his voice as he said: “I want you. Come to me.”

“Jaehyun, I don’t even speak the language.”

“I’ll pay for your lessons. I’ll get your apartment ready.” He took advantage of the moment to picture Jaehyun’s dimples while he predictably nibbled on his lips in anticipation.

“So what do you think?” 

“Okay.” He’d said after a quiet pause, “I’ll visit you. See how it’s like, and then decide.” But on the inside he knew, where ever Jaehyun took him, he’d go, because that was how things were. Yuta was just a moth and Jaehyun was his flame.

  
  


&&

  
  


“Don’t go.” The hand around his arm was the last thing Yuta expected to feel tonight. He was beginning to see the error in his judgement after convincing himself that this might be the closure he badly needed.

“Jaehyun.”

“I was wrong. So very wrong.” He heard the tremor in the younger man’s voice. “I won’t be able to forgive myself if I let you go again without telling you the truth.”

“What truth?” That Yuta had been played all these years and he willingly let it happen? That Jaehyun valued his family’s honor more than he did Yuta’s feelings? In the end, he couldn’t keep the venom from his voice.

“That I was in love with you. Still am, and I don’t think I’m capable of ever falling out of love with you.” 

  
  


&&

  
  


The arrangement was simple. Jaehyun went to dinners his family set with potential partners, women from the upper fringe of society. Korean, born and raised, a good christian girl in every sense of the word. But Jaehyun would go back to his apartment with his tie undone, expecting to find Yuta on his bed at eleven in the evening, waiting patiently. Eagerly. 

In hindsight, it was no different from what they did back in America, except Yuta’s life was now too closely weaved with Jaehyun’s. There was no going back, he realized, while Jaehyun bent him over the twenty million won dining table.

“So this game. We never agreed on what it’s about.” Jaehyun said while he watched Yuta light his cigarette with Jaehyun’s vintage dupont lighter. 

“How about, how long can we do this before we get tired of each other?” A brittle laugh, and then silence.

“I might have to get married by the end of the year.” He was told mid-puff as the smoke billowed around them. Three years. It was how long they managed to keep the ruse. It took Jaehyun’s family three years to realize their son was sleeping with a man who used to be his senior in college.

The leech they unknowingly let into their system. Yuta climbed up the management ladder of the Jung pharmaceutical in the day, and entertained their youngest son’s kinks at night. 

Right here, in the middle of Jaehyun’s bed, the diamond ring that once belonged to Jaehyun’s mother reflected the light from the lamp. Yuta fiddled with it and asked “What if I wore this to your wedding?” 

“You wouldn’t.” 

Yuta hummed. He’d lost count of the number of times Jaehyun called out his bluff.

“Yuta. _Hyung_. Will you stay?” It was definitely a trick of a light and yet the sheen over Jaehyun’s eyes made him falter. Any self respecting person would know that this is when he was supposed to back off and call it quits. 

He was a stubborn ass who had an entire world to prove to his parents. He was cunning and downright nasty when he wanted to get his way. But he was nobody’s side whore.

Except, there was no way he could’ve said no. That option had been out of his reach from the moment he let Jaehyun’s tongue in his mouth in a dank alley in Virginia.

“And what? Be your mistress?” 

“Yes.”

  
  


&&

  
  


“You’re a jerk, I hope you know that.”

“I do.”

“You asked me to stay, realized I’m too much of an inconvenience and now you want me back.” 

“I’m sorry.” Jaehyun finally met his gaze. He took Yuta’s hand and held it through his struggle. He bit his lip and continued: “I never saw you as an inconvenience. I would have chosen you over her, every single time.”

“Then why? Why did you do it?”

“Because I couldn’t be selfish anymore.”

  
  


&&

It was easy staying off the radar when Jaehyun was a single man with hardly any reservations. But Ara was nothing but distrustful. It was to be expected, she was a lot younger than Jaehyun, her youth stolen from her before she could learn to be more comfortable in her own skin. 

She would notice Jaehyun’s dress shirt askew, buttoned up wrong, or simply crumpled, and throw a fit. She would see the new earrings Yuta would wear to get togethers, and recognize the store they were from from the paper bags Jaehyun carelessly stashed inside their closet.

“He will never choose you.” She said after she saw him by chance at Jaehyun’s favorite tea shop. Ironically, shopping for Jaehyun’s birthday, and it seemed Ara had the same thing in mind because Yuta clearly remembered that she was a coffee person.

“Excuse me?”

“I know that you two are fooling around. One day he’s going to snap out of it and leave you.” Was what she said before Yuta could pull her away from the crowd.

But I was here before you, was what he should've said but he remembered he wasn't in the position to say anything. He never was, even before Jaehyun was married.

Thirteen days later, on Jaehyun’s birthday, Yuta sat on the bed of his tiny bachelor apartment. Waiting and waiting. For the first time since they started this silly little game all those years ago, tears sprung up to his eyes when his phone vibrated on his lap with a message from Jaehyun:

‘Sorry, I can’t make it’

  
  


&&

  
  


“I wanted you so bad that I selfishly kept you trapped. I hurt you over and over, and you keep letting me and I…” Jaehyun brought his hand to his lips and pressed his lips over his knuckles. Jaehyun’s hotel room was small and simple for someone of his status.

The party was now just a distant echo from below their feet.

“I can’t keep hurting you so I had to stop. I was hoping you’d move on and then I would too.”

“But we never did.” Because it stopped being a game when Yuta saw Jaehyun in every possible future. It was never a game, to begin with.

“No.”

Yuta looked at the bare ring finger. “Is that why you left your wife?”

“She wanted a life that wasn’t filled with uncertainties. I made her miserable too, just like I did you.” 

He bowed his head in defeat. There was no use pretending. “But you made me so, so happy too.” 

  
  


&&

  
  


Jaehyun didn’t dodge the punch to his jaw that sent him sprawled on the floor. Yuta couldn’t see anything but red. He couldn’t see the regret in Jaehyun’s eyes nor hear the apologies on his lips.

“After everything.”

“Hyung.”

“Don’t call me that! Fuck!” He threw a decorative pillow at the younger man and then another for good measure. 

“We can’t keep going like this.”

“Weren’t you the one who decided we could?! What the hell happened to your fucking promises?” 

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.” Jaehyun looked up with a bloody lip. “The apartment is yours, this won’t affect your position either.”

“I don’t give a damn Jung Jaehyun.” When he threw him out of the door that night he had really believed that that would be the last time he’d see him. When he’d tendered his resignation and packed up his bags, he truly thought that was it.

He knew why Jaehyun wanted him gone from his life and it wasn’t because he didn’t love him. But Jaehyun was a coward and Yuta decided cowardice was the last thing that could save him. 

  
  


&&

  
  


“What do you want from me?” He sobbed while Jaehyun trailed kisses under his collar. His tears were hot and heavy on his cheeks as he recalled his heartbreak. Seoul was the most unforgiving place for two and half years as he followed the sensational divorce and the subsequent renouncement of the second son.

“Just you. I promise. Yuta please.” Jaehyun’s kisses were nothing like how he remembered them. Desperate, guilt ridden. Yuta gripped the lapels of his jacket and leaned forward.

“Then what this time?”

“Then you take me away with you. Away from here. Just the two of us.” Yuta hiccuped into Jaehyun’s swollen lips as the latter laid it on thick.

Yuta was still the moth to Jaehyun’s flame, but as Jaehyun lowered him to the hotel mattress he realized that he’d spiralled too close too many times but Jaehyun had never, ever burnt him.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the angst! i tried to go easy on it but well


End file.
